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Tag: habits

I actually successfully completed the Goodreads 2016 challenge. My goal was to read 52 books last year and I read 53! I haven’t officially checked, but that might be the first time I ever completed the challenge. Part of my goal included reading a certain number of books on writing and creativity. On Writing by Stephen King was by far my favorite. It is a good book for writers and non-writers alike. I’m not going to do a “best of” list (at least not in this post) but I did end up with a few new favorite books in 2016.

Podcasts

I started out the year getting caught up on Welcome to Night Vale. That was in part due to tickets I had to an author discussion with the creators in late 2015 to promote their book of the same name. Of late I have not stayed on top of their podcast updates, but I did appreciate it for Twin Peaks-like storytelling. Lately I’ve been listening to the James Altucher podcast. I don’t listen to every guest, just ones who sound super interesting. When he releases a new podcast, he also teases with a blog post listing several things he learned from the latest guest. I click over to listen when I want to learn something from his list too.

Habits

Speaking of James Altucher, I started a practice in 2016 he strongly recommends. Every day write 10 ideas about anything. He claims doing this has drastically changed his life every 6 months. I haven’t made it a daily practice yet, but I have noticed that I am taking action on ideas I generate on my lists. Not all of these ideas are good. Actually a lot of them are terrible. Chances are I would not have come up with my good ideas if I didn’t write the bad ideas too. This has led to blog post ideas, new creative project ideas, and new avenues in writing projects. I’ve also used this at work when I get stuck on a problem to find alternative solutions when they aren’t immediately evident.

At the end of 2016 I also started a habit tracker to promote good habits in health, mind, soul, and creativity. Results have been mixed. From what I learned in December I need to make more time for fitness and writing.

Meditation

This has been something I have tried on and off since reading 10% Happier by Dan Harris. I try for a daily mindfulness practice for just a few minutes, though lately I haven’t been very consistent. Meditation is something you build. Just like your idea muscle with your 10 ideas. This is your mindfulness muscle. I have noticed that I feel the need to get back to my practice when I am feeling most out of line in my life.

Blog

I revived this blog towards the end of 2016 with the goal of posting every Wednesday morning. About that… Anyway, it’s Wednesday and I’m back. I’m going to keep plugging away at this and see what it turns into. The blog, just like everything else I tried in 2016 is an experiment. I’ll try and I’ll tweak and I’ll figure out what works for me and ultimately do that.

Thanks for hanging with me.

Happy 2017. Are you trying something new this year? Are you keeping up with a new habit from last year?

I’m trying new things. I want to feel more positive. I want to let go of some of my anxiety.

In November I tried to build new habits. I was inspired by habit trackers shared by avid bullet journalers on blogs and Instagram. I tried one of my own. (I’m not posting a picture because it is not nearly as pretty as the one I linked to). Every day I tracked progress on Physical, Mental, and Spiritual health goals… and sleep. Sleep was a priority for November because I was dealing with nightmares and sleep disturbances that were making it hard to get up in the morning.

Verdict after 30 days of habit tracking: I need to eat more greens and stop looking at my phone before bed.

The best thing about my habit tracker in its pretty Moleskine notebook is not the tracker, it’s the next page. The next page is a list of November 2016 “Best of” moments. Any day something good happened, I wrote the date and a single sentence or phrase.

I did not have an entry for all 30 days, but I did get an entry for more than 50% of the days. For December I will try for 70%.

Writing down the good forces me to reflect on what went right that day. If I can’t think of anything or forget one day it’s okay. However on the days I think are garbage, I have a list of great things to look back on. I can see at a glance good news, people I love, and life milestones. Good things pass us by in a few moments of happiness but the bad things seem to gnaw at our minds. At least they do for me. The Best of List makes the bad things get in the back seat for a while.

Oddly this list was an afterthought. I looked at the blank page and asked myself what could go there. Since I was working on my gratitude habit and our anniversary happened to be the first day of the month, I wrote it on the top line on the page. I thought I would write down good things on the same page over the course of months. In less than 30 days, the page is nearly full. It turned out happy news was all around. I just had to open my eyes to see it.

For December I am revamping the Habit Tracker. And I am looking to filling my “Best of December” page.